kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats
by affability
Summary: Maybe we could find new ways to fall apart. Sherlock/Molly.


**a/n**: A friend of mine introduced me to this show a while ago and this is the dreaded result of introducing me to a TV show (especially one that's this good). Forgive me, blame her. The title is a line from _Welcome to New York_ by Taylor Swift and the summary is from _We Are Young_ by Fun. (This was rushed and done quickly but I'd still prefer some honest feedback because it would mean a lot to me).

**kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats  
><strong>Maybe we could find new ways to fall apart. Sherlock/Molly.

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The first time he sees her is on the train.

In the beginning, she's just as wholly insignificant as the others are. Her cell phone is pressed firmly against her ear; her hair is tailored with streaks of auburn and gold, her cerise red lips are agape with vivacity and her luminous brown eyes gleam with affection. It becomes apparent that whoever is on the other end of the line is amorously involved with her. Then when she laughs, it causes him to arch his eyebrows and stagger slightly in his seat. It rings clear like bluebells throughout the well-ventilated subway, it sounds buoyant and dream-swept, reeking of naivety and saccharinity. She then pauses and turns to face him, catching his gaze and smiling amiably before turning around, her attention once again belonging to the caller.

He wonders why he cares.

::

::

Her name is Molly.

This he learns on a substantially muddled October afternoon, when she stands brightly in his laboratory, offering to be his assistant in the midst of cold white walls and gloomy test tubes. He quickly learns that she is everything he is not—hopeful, incandescent, brimming with anticipation and highly oblivious. He's surprised when he realizes that he remembers everything about her from the first time he met her. Her smile still contains the ostensible sense of innocence and optimism and her laughter is still contagious and childlike, but her eyes are starkly different. They are colder, less trusting, and they illume under the florescent lights as she meets his gaze while he looms over her highly impressive portfolio. He watches as she presses her petal-colored lips together (_rose tinted, no longer cherry_) before proceeding to smile timidly.

He hires her. And watches how she slowly crumbles.

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"You're brilliant," she whispers timidly, amongst solvents and precipitates.

He arches an eyebrow. "Hardly a difficult deduction."

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::

He watches her in action.

He observes the way her rubicund nails carefully caress over men's wrist as she speaks, purposefully dropping her tone in order to sound sultrier, flicking trails of auburn over her bare porcelain shoulder and grinning effervescently while he cringes whenever they utter her name (_Molly, Molly, Molly_). Her eyes are flames—they burn and illuminate and she laughs and laughs and _goodness_ – they've come and gone in split seconds. He watches as she sashays into his lab with a new partner attached to her left arm, radiating with newfound confidence and self-worth and he cannot seem to stop himself from working extra hard to find their faults; he deduces their weaknesses and falsity in mere seconds, finding it second nature to find every flaw and pointedly rub it in her crestfallen face every single time. It ignites his bones when they leave because she's _his_ – his partner, his associate, his colleague and when she's distracted, she's less efficient (_that's what he tells himself every day_).

But she's made her feelings painfully obvious – changing into that sultry, blood red lipstick whenever he arrives and tilting her head ever so slightly when she speaks. He knows it causes his heartbeat to increase excessively but _it doesn't mean anything _because she's nothing but a workmate, a, dare he say it, friend. And every single time he ignores her, he sees the way she falls and falls and wonders if a day will come whereby she will finally have enough of their continued mind games and walk out. And it is aggravating whenever she makes a pass at him, because his heart accelerates like a rocket and he thinks it's incredibly illogical to feel anything for the brunette but he _does_. He's not allowed to but he does.

"She _likes_ you," states John, eyes squinting in exasperation as he looms over Sherlock's bedroom. "Can't you see?"

He just keeps _oh so silent_ and lets him walk away in frustration because he already knows. Damn it does he know.

::

::

"You're brilliant," he whispers, turning to face her, his voice inaudible.

She doesn't hear him and he doesn't repeat it.

::

::

He likes to pretend he doesn't feel a thousand hummingbirds flapping incessantly in his chest when he kisses her cheek on that fateful Christmas night, among the midst of hushed words and reddening cheeks. He really does.

::  
>::<p>

He stands at the edge of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, his dark shoes teetering as he stares grimly at the sea of people.

He looks down at John and hesitantly meets his bemused gaze, inhaling before he falls. Cutting sharply into the arctic air, he remembers her words (_I'll take care of John, I'll take care of Mrs. Hudson, they'll be fine, I'll be fine, you'll be fine, I'll see you soon_) and feels them spiraling throughout the air as he swirls. For the first time, he is brought back to his childhood days of climbing up to the rooftop and whispering excitedly to his parents, little hands swerving through the air and mouth radiating with the sound of make-believe airplanes taking off.

He lands on the mattress and heaves a sigh of relief as he hears her voice throughout his head.

_I'll see you soon_.

::

::

He spends two years without her—without anyone, really.

It happens gradually; he manages to escape unnoticed and goes on a spiral solving crimes. He visits Paris, New York, Rome—spends midsummer afternoons and dead of winters in the most romantic places on the planet with nobody to share it with. He helps unsuspecting police offices, he cracks plans and schemes to throw horrid criminals in jail for good, he visits labs and dons hundreds of white lab coats with hundreds of lab partners finds that none of them radiate the same way it did on her. He remembers the way she laughed, the way she felt when her hands purposefully brushed against his when reaching for the same appliance in the lab, the way she grinned whenever she held someone proudly on her arm, the way her eyes gleamed with joy and admiration whenever he solved a case and how she would always stay beside him, no matter how he treated her.

He sees her everywhere—in his walls, in his books, in his dreams, in his mind palace. He remembers her on hazy nights and daydreams about her on cloudy afternoons. He wonders why out of all the people in the entire world, he chooses to remember her. Mycroft would suggest early stages of insanity, but Mycroft isn't here. He pauses, reconsiders, as he stirs his drink in the middle of Germany in a lonely coffee house on a late Sunday afternoon.

_Nobody's here_.

::

::

But then he finally comes back and when he gets the chance to see her, she greets him with hugs and glassy-eyed smiles and he finds himself relaxing in her cordial embrace.

"Welcome back, Sherlock," she whispers quietly into his coat. She draws out a long, heavy breath. "I missed you." He holds her and acts as if he doesn't see the bright sphere that sits comfortably on her ring finger and the white gold jewel that glimmers exquisitely on it under the luminous lights in her little, quiet apartment (it will take him ages to accept the fact that now she's _taken_).

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Mary and John find him in a crack house amidst sleeping bags and drag him halfway across town into his lab, asking her to do a drug test.

When she's done, she slaps him forcefully after pronouncing that he's clean. He winces with every piercing hit and realizes that this is her uncanny way of yelling at him for everything that he's done, everything that he's put her through and after she rubs her hand against her coat, he arches an eyebrow and makes a snide comment about her failed engagement once he notices that the ring is gone and watches the way her face crumbles slightly and realizes how much he doesn't deserve her, not that he ever thought he did.

But later that night, she's ferociously sobbing against his shoulder, her breath tinged with the slightest dose of alcohol and when she turns and meets his perplexed gaze, she kisses him and doesn't let go. He doesn't know what to do—doesn't know where to look, whether or not he should pull apart or reciprocate the kiss, but then before there is time for him to decide she breaks apart and goes to the bathroom to rinse off.

He knows she hates the way they are – she really does, but she has a terrible way of showing it, because when she comes back, she kisses him again and he doesn't stop her.

::

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She tastes like cherries on Mondays, raspberries on Thursdays and Starbucks coffee on Sundays.

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"What are we?" she whispers one dark night, tangled up beside him and he forces himself to not run his hands through her silky brown hair because she's looking at him with that vulnerable look in her eyes.

He hitches his breath and doesn't respond because he knows that once he whispers what he wants to (because she's the closest thing he's ever had to love and he knows that once he says that her eyes will gleam and she'll never get over him). He kisses her and feels her smile and he freezes when he realizes that he's the poison running aimlessly and tardily through her veins.

::

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But secretly, he does love her.

He _really _does; for all the wrong reasons, in all the wrong ways.

::

He thinks of all the ways he's ruined her.

Her (still) long hair is significantly darker than it was the first time, her mouth is still cherry red and she still has her cell phone in her hand. Her eyes, however, are no longer filled with mirth and innocence and her smile no longer reaches her eyes. He could very well pretend that he isn't the one who callously broke her, the one who caused her gleam and light to dissolve within seconds and crash into splinters, but he's Sherlock Holmes—he doesn't pretend. He is just as cold and uninviting as when he first met her. He hasn't changed, yet she has.

But then when she looks fondly at Mary and John cradling and lifting their newborn baby into the air-conditioned air of the hospital, she grabs his hand and leans into him and that's when he begins to think that maybe, just maybe, they could have _something_.

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End file.
